Posts Tagged Viking Metal
Swedish Government Bans Windmilling
Posted by zenaphobe67 in General Weirdness on May 19, 2014
King Carl Gustaf XVI has become the next in a long list of world leaders to throw his weight behind the war to end all wars, The War On Metal. Using a medical controversy to justify his actions, King Gustaf has issued an edict that bans windmilling in public and private places until further notice. The ban effects all of Sweden, and states that anyone found windmilling will be fined 10,000 krona and will be exiled to picking up litter around the fjords wearing a rotary sensitive shock collar.
Sweden, which many may know, is famous for its Swedish fish candies and it’s ratio of 87 Viking metal bands to one synthpop band, is the windmilling capital of the world and this ban is seen as a royal overreach aimed at subduing the metal subculture into irrelevance. Many Swedes feel that this move was inspired by the recent outbreak of fighting in the hills of Afghanistan, where drone attacks are indiscriminately targeting mosh pits and corpse paint store fronts. The metal community in Sweden has been reeling from several previous attempts to link them to harmful behaviors, the last being a fabricated whistle blower hit piece in which many bands were accused of testing music on lab animals.
Several news agencies received anonymous VHS tapes with footage that can only be described as criminal and twisted, that shows scenes from inside an alleged “Sound Chamber of Satan” where hundreds of Eurasian Pygmy Shrews are strapped into very small cots and subjected to hours of death metal at a time. At one point in the video, the shrews have been moved into what looks like a coliseum and are hacking away at each other with swords and axes. Later shown to be a fraud , the tapes irreparably damaged the reputation of metal in Sweden and began to move public attitudes in a negative direction.
Capitalizing on this momentum, the Ministry of Health investigated a study done by Arch Enemy titled, “Windmill Your Way To A Healthy Thyroid” and alleged that the positive results could not be duplicated during double blind testing and they then turned their attention to similar reports released by the bands Dismember, Bloodbath, and At The Gates. The health benefits of windmilling hearken back to the early Vikings, and it is used in many holositc metal health treatments. Windmilling is said to cure seasonal allergies, planters warts, and even hypothyroidism, but is dismissed as pseudo science by the medical community.
In a full on media blitz, the Ministry of Health released a document dump of 2200 “studies” which linked windmilling to ailments ranging from male pattern baldness to spinal kyphosis. Public service messages were aired featuring so called “Ex-millers” giving their testimonies of how windmilling had destroyed their health and MP3 collections.
Arch Enemy vocalist, Alisa White-Gluz, says she is saddened by the political weaponizing of the innocuous tradition of windmilling and has begun to form a coalition of the milling to resist further stigmatization of the windmilling community. In the wake of the prohibition, small, secret cells of windmillers are springing up to provide practitioners of this gentle art an outlet to let their hair down and avoid the prying eyes of the law. Lobbying efforts to overturn the ban have begun by the powerful and influential cervical collar industry, as the criminalization of windmilling has brought cervical collar sales to levels not seen since the Swedish disco craze of the 1990’s.
Theme From An Imaginary Grindcore Album: The Birth of UnMusic
Posted by Keith Spillett in Articles I Probably Shouldn't Have Bothered Writing, UnMusic on February 5, 2011
Today is a landmark day in the history of music. On Saturday February 5th at 10:37 AM a new genre of music has been born. Welcome to the world of UnMusic. Many times I have read the song titles on albums and thought to myself “This album has great song titles, it’s too bad the songs are horrendous.”
If you have had that thought from time to time, then UnMusic is for you. UnMusic removes the irritating and grating music that is on albums and merely gives you song titles. I give you the song title, what your imagination does with them is up to you. Think of the possibilities? Music without the limitations of actually having a song! I’m not even going to give the album a cover with artwork. I feel like that would be selling out. You, the listener, have complete artistic freedom to imagine what we would have sounded like had we actually recorded the songs.
For the purposes of marketability, the music will (not) be recorded by my band E.T.A.F. (Eats Things that Aren’t Food), who are known for their top 40 single “Jodie Meeks”. This genre is deeply influenced by grindcore (particularly by the band A.C.). Grindcore is a style of metal that often features hysterical song titles and horrifically unlistenable songs. Why bother with the songs?!?!?!
I was thinking about grindcore when these songs were (not) written, and actually believe this album better fits into a subgenre known as UnCore. That being said, I don’t want to limit your imagination, so if the songs sound in your mind like Michael Bolton or Earth Wind and Fire when you think of them, go with it.
Band: E.T.A.F.
Album Name: Unfriended By Life
Songs:
1. Obligatory 2 Minute Acoustic Guitar Instrumental Intro
2. Tipper Gore Told You To Throw Out All of Your Judas Priest Albums…But You Didn’t Listen
3. I Got Scolded Because I Made Fun of the Drummer From Winger
4. You Hung Out With The Band Skindred in A Parking Lot
5. If Lincoln Were Alive Today, He’d Be Angry They Buried Him
6. Stop Staring At Me…I’m Not Going to Talk to You
7. You Have Children
8. Mubarak Has the Best Interests of His People In Mind
9. “So…Wait….Now You Are Saying That You Are Not A Doctor?!?!”
10. I Follow People Around Malls
11. You Like Tomatoes, But You Don’t Like Ketchup
12. You Met Your Wife At A Viking Metal Concert
14. Ketchup Is A Vegetable
15. You Lost Your Children’s College Fund Because Jerome Bettis Fumbled
16. You Missed a Meeting With Your Parole Officer To Go To An ICP Concert
17. You Sent Your Son To School With Head Lice
18. Choose Life…The Lesser of Two Evils
19. You Learned to Speak Latin In Order To Sound Arrogant
19. You Gave Blood
19. There Are 3 Track 19s on This Album
20. You Were Unfriended By Soccer
21. You Voted In Florida And It Didn’t Count
22. Two Tens For a Five (A Tribute To Goldman Sachs)
23. You Have Restless Leg Syndrome
24. No One Follows You On Twitter
25. You Are Allergic To Dog Dander and Milk
26. You Live In Buffalo
27. You Were Unfriended By Bacon
28. My 98 Year Old Grandmother Just Compared Municipal Waste to D.R.I.
29. You Live In Buffalo
30. “No Officer, A Sound Did Not Come From My Trunk”
31. You Gave Your Son Cortisone Shot So He Could Play In A Little League Game
32. You Have A Bank Account
33. People Don’t Take You Seriously Because You Have A Mustache
34. You Pay Taxes Because You Think Its Patriotic
35. If It Wasn’t For All The Crime, Miserable People and Decaying Buildings, Gary, Indiana Would Be a Great City
36. Sucks to Be You…You Play Soccer
37. Soccer is The World’s Most Popular Sport
38. You Own A Copy of The Movie “Space Jam” and You Don’t Have Any Kids
38. HA! HA! HA!!! You Voted For Obama…and He Lost!!!
39. You Went On Strike Until Your Company Agreed To Show Jerry Springer In The Break Room
40. You Live In Buffalo
41. You Are An Organ Donor
42. You Know How To Properly Use A Semi-Colon
43. You Quote Ayn Rand
44. You Hope That Iron Maiden Plays All The Songs From The X Factor At Their Next Concert
45. Your Kids Don’t Talk To You Because You Have A Mohawk
46. You Think That People Are Smiling In Commercials Because They Are Happy
47. Nobody Goes To Your MySpace Page Because Your Band Does Lionel Richie Covers
48. Spellcheck is Wrong…Grindcore is One Word
49. No One Knows What Barney Greenway is Talking About
50. I Listened To The First Carcass Album and Became a Vegetarian
51. You Are So Metal That You Were Into Ozzy Before He Joined Black Sabbath
52. Raggacore Is The Next Big Thing
Hidden Tracks:
52. You Think It’s Ironic To Have Song Titles Without Actual Songs
53. It’s Funny Until You Start Talking
54. Some Random Cover of A Band I’ve Never Heard Of Like Budgie
55. A.C. Can’t Sue Me For Stealing Their Idea Because They Can’t Afford A Lawyer
56. Even Spammers Ignore You
The Tyranny of Tradition 